Reviews by Sparkay

If you haven't seen Six-String Samurai yet, stop reading this review right now and rent it. Other reviewers have talked about this movie being over-hyped, but coming at this moving completely clean, I thought it was great fun. This is not a post-apocalyptic thriller. This is not a kung-fu flick. This is a kid's movie. I'd bet dollars to donuts that Six-String Samurai started out as someone's bedtime story. It's full of quest mythology (a la Star Wars) and childhood nightmares (a la Through the Looking Glass) with the magic of music to tie it all together (a la Blues Brothers). It's the Wizard of Oz with Mad Max sensibilities. Kudos to Mungia and Falcon for making this refreshing movie. If somebody gave these guys a major budget, a basket-full of cameos, and a little bit of script tweaking (does anyone know how to reach Neil Gaiman or William Goldman?) Six-String Samurai would be a classic.

The premise has promise, but this parable gets sidetracked with unnecessary, just-short-of-random chase scenes and overly stereotypical characters. Perversely, the less central the character, the better the acting in this flick. And this movie actually gets worse when you listen to the director's commentary. The director is quite self-congratulatory about the deep insights he has about the haves, the media, racism, and 1980s teenage culture. Unfortunately the movie skips all of its chances to explore intelligent what-if scenarios and settles for trivial sex and boring violence.